DAY 3: Gilles de Rais (ShortHand’s 13 Days of Halloween)

RedHanded

Wondery | RedHanded

True Crime

4.5 • 18.2K Ratings

🗓️ 20 October 2025

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the last 13 days before Halloween, a different ShortHand will rise from the archives for 24 hours only – before disappearing back into the vault. Get exclusive access to every ShortHand episode ad free only on Amazon Music Unlimited.

First, children started to go missing in the villages around the Black Baron’s castle. Then, word spread of his dabbling in sinister, arcane rituals to conjure the Devil himself. And soon, in the dead of night, villagers reported hearing screams from a high castle window.

Some say Medieval French nobleman Gilles de Rais was the first recorded serial killer in history, responsible for the gruesome torture and murder of hundreds, if not thousands, of children. Join us to find out what really happened high up in the dark towers of the Black Baron.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to RedHounded early and ad-free.
0:04.6	Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.
0:08.7	What if I told you that the crime of the century is the one being waged on our planet?
0:13.5	Introducing Lawless Planet, Wondry's new podcast exploring the dark side of the climate crisis.
0:19.7	Uncover shocking tales of crime and corruption threatening our world's future.
0:24.5	Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts.
0:28.8	Hello there's spooky listener.
0:30.7	It's October, our favorite time of the year.
0:33.4	And so to celebrate and give you all a well-deserved treat,
0:36.7	we're bringing you the 13 days of Halloween.
0:40.1	Short-hand edition.
0:42.0	Usually, every single week over on Amazon Music, we release brand new episodes of our bite-sized sister show, Shorthand.
0:49.8	It's like Red Hand's little friend.
0:51.7	Where we delve into all sorts of fascinating topics,
0:55.2	from hell in different religions, Haitian voodoo, the death of Edgar Allan Poe,
0:59.7	Qatar's syndrome, Japan suicide forest, and so much more. And this Halloween, from the 19th of October
1:06.7	to the 31st of October, we are going to be pulling out 13 of our most terrifying episodes of
1:12.5	shorthand to drop straight into your red-handed feed every single day.
1:18.3	But beware.
1:21.4	Each episode will only be available for 24 hours.
1:25.8	So get listening or abandon or hope.
1:30.0	Enjoy.
	...

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